and how bold Ranter, with little faith in his promise, “seized him by the neck and refused to let him go.” It is one of many specimens of a like kind still current among old people. An old man, speaking of Mr. Stubbs, for whom, he remarked, the day was never too long, and who at its close would sometimes urge his brother sportsmen to draw for a fresh fox, with the reminder that there was a moon to kill by, said, “One of the rummiest things my father, who hunted with the Squire, told me, was a run by moonlight. I’m not sure, but I think Mr. Dansey, Mr. Childe, and Mr. Stubbs, if not Mr. Meynell, were at the Hall. They came sometimes, and sometimes the Squire visited them. Howsomeever, there were three or four couples of fresh hounds at the kennels, and it was proposed to have an after-dinner run. They dined early, and, as nigh as I can tell, it was three o’clock when they left the Hall, after the Beggarlybrook fox. Mind that was a fox, that was—he was. He was a dark brown one, and a cunning beggar too, that always got off at the edge of a wood, by running first along a wall and then leaping part of the way down an old coal pit, which had run in at the sides. Well, they placed three couples of hounds near to this place in readiness, and the hark-in having been given, the gorse soon began to shake, and a hound or two were seen outside, and amongst them old Pilot, who now and then took a turn outside, and turned in, lashing his stern, and giving the right token. ‘Have at him!’ shouted one; ‘Get ready!’ said another; ‘Hold hard a bit, we shall have him, for a hundred!’ shouted the Squire. Then comes a tally-ho, said my father, and off they go; every hound out of cover, sterns up, carrying a beautiful head, and horses all in a straight line along the open, with the scent breast high. Reynard making straight for the tongue of the coppice, finds himself circumvented, and fresh hounds being let loose, he makes for Wenlock Walton as though he was going to give ’em an airing on the hill-top. “‘But, headed and foiled, his first point he forsook, And merrily led them a dance o’er the brook.’ “Some lime burners coming from work turned him, and, leaving Wenlock on the left, he made for Tickwood. It was now getting dark, and the ground being awkward, one or two were down. The Squire swore he would have the varmint out of Tickwood; and the hounds working well, and old Trumpeter’s tongue being heard on the lower side, one challenged the other, and they soon got into line in the hollow, the fox leading. Stragglers got to the scent, and off they went by the burnt houses, where the Squire’s horse rolled over into a sand-pit. The fox made for the Severn, but turned in the direction of Buildwas, and was run into in the moonlight, among the ivied ruins of the Abbey.”